At that, I had to smile. “No. Evil judges itself. The ‘evil’ you refer to is the neutral definition of that, which basically is defined by one’s own self-interest.

“Like Law and Chaos, Good and Evil define themselves, Ben. You only need look at the color of souls to see that.

“The Badoon practice of genocide of sapients to claim territory is indeed a great Evil, even while they justify it as merely a racial imperative. While animals can do so without challenge under the force of instinct, the Badoon know there are other ways, and they deliberately choose the path, believing it right and proper until the moment the same decision is levied upon them, and then they will protest it with all their might.

“The hypocrisy at the core of it is what makes it Evil. What I did to them may not have been a great Rightness, but it was in no ways Wrong. War is, in the end, an unaligned force that all the Alignments use freely.”

He harrumphed. “Weaponizing philosophy as a justification for your actions seems to be the natural state at this level,” he muttered with a frown.

“If you don’t have a philosophy, you’re an animal or a fool. If you aren’t willing to fight for it, you’re a coward, an eventual victim, or a hypocrite. Choosing where you stand is also choosing who you stand beside, and stand against. Not making the choice means the choice is being made for you. You will either have to fight or flee at some point, there simply is no escape from the conflict. Ignoring it simply becomes being doomed without raising your hand in your own defense.”

“That sounds ominous...”

“There’s already been two potentially universe-destroying moments since you became the Molecule Man. One involved a boosted Dormammu of the Dark Dimension infiltrating Eternity and trying to destroy Him at his weak points, and the other was Nightmare managing to send Eternity into sleep and controlling him through Dreams.” I just shook my head. “Sama cut Dorm out of Eternity the first time, and Briggs went in and gave Nightmare a Daymare, as he put it. Neither situation can happen again, and I believe Nightmare is afraid to go doze off now...”

Ben Parker smiled despite himself. “It’s not their first time doing this stuff, I see.”

“No, there’s been time travel/uncreation stuff going on for a long time now, and Reality Warpers and the like are still getting shifted into this universe from alternities, using the two of them as antibodies. They can’t do much about it, but eh, that’s what you get for being on top.”

“Huh.” He looked out into the stars again, and what entities were looking around and maybe back at him. Warily, no doubt. He really was incredibly powerful. “What’s next on your agenda, then?”

“Mundane stuff.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Someone’s been messing around with finances for the High Guard and Baxter Foundation. It’s time it ended.”

“I don’t even care about money anymore, but that sounds pretty serious in its own way.”

“Yeah. Most people aren’t cosmically-powered sorts who can materialize rare assets ready to liquidate for trade purposes on a whim. They’ll do all sorts of stuff for more money.”

He hadn’t forgotten that, of course. He had never come from money.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“Me? Little more than give some directions, until the end. Then, I’m going to kill a dark god who has been waiting too long to die.”

He thought over that, nodded faintly, and we sat there looking out at the stars, and the dark between them.

-----------

She walked into Fisk Towers quite openly. The guards there probably wouldn’t have recognized her if she wasn’t gliding more than walking, zipping right by them and heading for the elevators while ignoring their shouts.

They momentarily considered stopping the elevator when they saw it was heading right to the boss’ floor, then considered what was probably going to happen to it if they did so. They settled for urgently calling up to that floor to let them know that Dynamo was coming, albeit she was in civilian garb.

Didi smiled slightly when the elevator was sent right up to that floor with no stops. The doors slid quietly open and she stepped out, knowing exactly where she was going.

The doors opened in front of her without being touched or buzzed, disconcerting the secretary who rose to her feet, and the brawny bodyguards stationed outside the large double doors leading into the office of Wilson Fisk.

“Miss Ouilette,” the older woman there forced a smile as Didi walked in. “Mister Fisk is currently in a business meeting. He can certainly see you afterwards...”

There was a snap and crackle as lightning rose up all around her, driving the bodyguards back urgently as she didn’t even slow down.

There was a hiss and snapping as an Ouilette-shaped hole was ripped very nicely and precisely through the middle of the doors, left smoking behind her as she entered the room beyond.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Everyone’s heads turned at the noise, just in time to see the writhing arcs of greenish-white electricity dim down, and the hole through the doors behind her still glowing where it showed metal.

“Mr. Capristrelli, Mr. Tombstone, Mr. Kennison, Mr. O’Toole, your meeting is over. Could you see yourselves out.”

They bridled as her green eyes met theirs with perfect calm, only to knuckle under instantly.

If they couldn’t leave, she would simply help them with that matter.

Still, they weren’t foolish enough to instantly obey her. They looked at their boss, Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of New York. The incredibly large man rumbled out a sigh after looking at his unwanted visitor. “Gentlemen, if you could give us the room,” he said with an air of impatience for the interruption.

They gratefully rose, skirting a safe distance around the elegant woman in heels standing a few inches above the ground on sparking mists. She didn’t look back as they quickly exited the door, and gestured at it with her fingers, the hole in it instantly sealing up with some dark substance that only emphasized the figure that had been cut into it.

“What can I do for the Baxter Building’s business manager today?” Fisk asked, knowing enough to be respectful to the woman in front of him. She wasn’t Spider-man, and she wasn’t Daredevil. He’d clashed enough with her in financial areas to know she had a ruthless decisiveness all her own, and she didn’t play happy moral games with those on the other side from her.

His dark eyes watched the chairs of his underlings get set neatly to the sides by invisible hands, flickering only slightly as he judged the threat such power entailed. He had no files on her to speak of, other than a few newspaper stories she had allowed to be published, but he naturally tracked the abilities of the superhumans living in New York as a matter of self-protection.

She sat down on a Disk that whirled up out nowhere and instantly reformed into a form-fitting floating chair for herself. “Mr. Fisk. You’ve been quite busy recently, and, I’m sure you know, so have I.” She flipped a folder out of nowhere and tossed it towards him. It spun sharply through the air, hit his broad desk, spun once, and came to a stop right before him.

She waited for him to open it, and examine the first picture there. That paper was stapled to another one, accordion-style, and that to another, and then another, a fourth, and there was his own face.

And two pictures beyond that, including one of a... thing that wasn’t even human. His face flushed to see it.

He also wasn’t stupid enough to not see what the connections between them meant.

There were twelve other sets of photographs. They all ended with him, his superior in the Hand over in Japan, and that... thing.

His expression was unsightly when he finally closed the folder, although he tried to conceal it.

“If you think you are the first to attempt to strike at the heroic community by going after their financial support, you would be very mistaken. The Savages were fighting off mobsters intent on getting their hands on their gold in the twenties, Fisk.

“The people involved in your little scheme are being contacted and notified that we know what they are trying to do, and who they are really working for. Most of them will no doubt try to get as far away as fast as possible, or life is going to get very uncomfortable for them. Most of them have already suffered significant financial reverses, and are being notified of them.”

She let that hang there, and let his face fall as he figured it out. “So, you’re not going to terminate our relationship, such as it is?” he asked grimly.

“This time. One time, Mr. Fisk. We are fully aware of who you are, what you are, and what you do. Unfortunately, you are fully and completely replaceable. If you die of an arterial clot out of the blue, there will be someone here to replace you tomorrow, who must be re-educated on the lines to not cross. It will probably become tiresome after the next dozen would-be kingpins kiss the pavement, and your heirs non-apparent shoot one another and bystanders in the streets.

“This is your lesson, Mr. Fisk. In ten minutes, a state inspection team will walk in the doors below, here to announce that your building is condemned.” He blinked at her in shock. “It already has an eighteen-inch lean to it. When its foundation was poured, someone cut corners and pocketed the money. The concrete has not set, and will not set before the building sways too far and falls over within three years. The core samples have already been taken, tested, and the facts proven.

“We’ll leave the three bodies buried in the foundation alone for the moment.”

“There, there were no corners cut on my building!” he blurted out, rising to his feet in agitation.

“You may test your foundations yourself, Mr. Fisk, as well as the building’s lean. If you think we make errors about such things, you are simply fooling yourself. Your insurers have already been notified, of course, and as you can imagine, the fraud involved means they are not going to be paying out for you, regardless of how much you pay your lawyers.

“If you require a second opinion, I recommend Mr. Hill over at Grimm Materials. He will give you exactly what you pay him for. I believe you have his card. Also, there is a demolition branch he does work for who can take the building down with minimum fuss. You may wish to negotiate that service with him, as well.”

Her immaculately-manicured nails came up in a steeple for him. “Then, we come to the final matter... this fealty to the demon Mikaboshi.”

Something in the chill of her voice indicated that he was now involved in something that was very serious, very otherworldly, and very out of his control. “I am not a follower of the demon patron of the Hand,” he said quickly. “The obeisance I have made to it were merely those required for my station.”

A shadow passed over him, and Wilson Fisk, the lord of the criminal underworld in New York City, had the distinct impression he had just avoided instant death.

“Every member of the Hand in New York City is now dead, including the assassin reserved to dispose of you if you foreswore them,” the woman across from him related icily to him. “The clan’s ancestral holdings and overseas interests are being moved on across the planet. There will be no need for you to break ties with them, as soon they will be extinct. I strongly advise that you not attempt to take over their business operations, as they are going to be used to lure out the other Hand clans and wipe them.”

Wilson Fisk found sweat breaking out on his bare skull. Just like that, a whole clan of the Hand was gone from the world. The greatest assassins of the world, feared for centuries, masters of the shadows.

Gone, because he had persisted in sticking his nose in the business of hero-types who were simply far beyond him... and were not afraid to kill.

The High Guard stayed above the world and the games played here, and he just had to stick his finger into their affairs, not considering the consequences.

Now they would be looking down at him from on high, and if he did something that they were not satisfied with, he would be ended.

What was the Kingpin of Crime of New York City to Primus, but one more wart on the collective skin of humanity? The High Guard had no hesitation about killing threats to the planet. What was stepping on a Kingpin to them?